Edward Shorter, Hannah Professor in the History of Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto (and recent contributor to our new How I Became a Historian of Psychiatry series), wrote a piece for the Scientific American blog which was published on Wednesday.

The article, entitled “Trouble at the Heart of Psychiatry’s Revised Rule Book“, deals with the DSM and starts thus:

One might liken the latest draft of psychiatry’s new diagnostic manual, the DSM-5, to a bowl of spaghetti. Hanging over the side are the marginal diagnoses of psychiatry, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, important for certain subpopulations but not central to the discipline.

At the center of the spaghetti bowl are the diagnoses at the heart of psychiatry: major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder.